I left my job at age 54 and accepted an offer a month later. These 4 strategies helped me land on my feet

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dave Posey, who recently turned 55 and is a general manager and vice president at Sanborn. He's located in Parker, Colorado. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.

I spent three decades in manufacturing, distribution, and channel sales, and I quit my previous role in May. Nobody forced me out — I could see where the company was headed, and it wasn't where I wanted to go.

I left on principle, with no job and no prospect of one. I'm in my mid-50s, and this was the first time in my career that had ever been true.

A month later, in June, I'd accepted an offer as general manager and vice president of the spatial intelligence division at Sanborn.

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I hired a career coach two months before I quit, while I was still employed and not actively looking for work. My coach showed me what I should do to interest employers, and as a result, a recruiter came to me instead of the other way around.

Your résumé buys you a conversation, and then it's dead weight

This market is brutal — nobody cared about my 30 years in the industry. I couldn't lean on any of it.

What companies want to know is how candidates will fix their problem now, not what they fixed in 2014. You have to prove yourself from scratch, in the first hour of your interviews, every single time.

These are the strategies I learned from my career coach that I used to get three offers and land my current job in one month in my mid-50s:

1. I rebuilt how I define myself

Before coaching, I could tell you everything I'd ever done in my career, but I couldn't tell you in one line what I bring to the table.

My coach made me answer that in the employer's terms instead of mine. She moved me from talking about "who I was" to "who I am and what I can do for your company."

In practice, the biggest change was that before, I'd been posting almost entirely in one lane on LinkedIn, focusing on credibility proof: "Here's what I built. Here's the number I hit. Here's my track record." It's the safest lane and the one nobody responds to, because it's your résumé in a different costume.

My coach moved me into two other lanes: pattern recognition and decision-making insight. These lanes weren't about what I did, but how I think: "Here's a problem you probably have. Here's my read on it. Here's the evidence. Here's what it means for you."

I stopped showing people my 30 years of experience and started showing them how I'd think about their problem if they hired me. I worked with my coach three times a week on figuring out how to do this.

2. I resuscitated my network and became visible

I think it's a similar pattern where everybody my age who's had a lengthy career gets comfortable — we haven't actively positioned ourselves. In the past, I'd never had to interview or fill out a résumé — the next opportunity always just opened up for me.

But when you get too comfortable, you lose your network and, all of a sudden, you just fade. You don't post like you're supposed to, you don't put yourself out there, you're not visible to everybody. That was the case with me.

Many people at this stage of life do the same thing: put up a banner on LinkedIn, talk to a few people, and go to some recruiters. You're not really seen when you do that, because you haven't worked on a larger network.

I think the big difference in what I did with my coach was that I put myself back in a place where I was being seen again.

3. I identified patterns in my work style and branded them

I looked at everything I've done through all my jobs, identified what I'd successfully done over and over again, and found a pattern. I asked myself: What's the big dataset I have from the past that really describes who I am and what I do, and how is that going to help the employer I want to work for?

My pattern was that I could diagnose a sales system, identify where leaks were in it, and fix them to get into positive sales territory. So, I was able to take that pattern and repackage it into a sellable tool. I never again said, "I did this." Instead, I said, "This is what I do."

Specifically, instead of saying, "I worked at my last company for three years and increased sales by 25%," I said: "I'm able to diagnose CRM systems and stop margin leaks." Then, for credibility, I pointed to my résumé so employers could see I'd done those things, and my ability to do them became my brand.

4. I made sure I could explain my brand in my sleep

Once I figured out the pattern that created my unique brand, I repeated it to myself until I knew it inside and out.

I had my headphones in all the time, listening to myself repeating statements about repairing $10 million in leaks, margin compaction, all the stuff that was my brand. I listened to it while I was in the shower, when I was driving somewhere at night, before going to bed.

I was able to repeat that pattern statement whenever I needed it — whatever network I was talking to, whatever person I was connecting with over coffee, whatever interview I had. This moved me very fast from first contact to the next stage because I was very clear on what and who I was.

I also made sure that all of my job search materials reflected the same language about my pattern — every move that I took, every place I advertised myself, it was all the same brand. If you looked at my LinkedIn, my résumé, or my cover letter, it was everywhere. I became a brand that showed I fixed unique sets of problems, as opposed to just a generic sales leader.

My brand was still based on my 30 years of proof, but instead of using the proof, I used the brand substantiated by the proof.

This job market can break your confidence

We think we should be confident individuals based on the length and depth of our career, and this market just whacks the confidence out of you.

I think that people struggle with that, and they don't have anybody to give that confidence to them again and tell them why they're important and what's unique about them. Learning these strategies from my coach has taught me that I can help people with this. I'd like to help others feel that confidence again too, that I feel now.

Do you have a story to share about navigating your career in your 50s? If so, please reach out to the editor, Agnes Applegate, at [email protected].

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